Thunderbirds Are Go - Production

Production

Believability was always my aim, no matter how outrageous or bizarre things got. I tried to keep the stories believable, if only for that particular moment. Of all the planets, the only one that might possibly sustain life was Mars, so, with everybody in science fiction wanting to talk about aliens or another race, Mars was the only planet that made any sense. Right up until the Americans landed the probe on Mars, there was speculation that there might be life there.

When shooting on Series One of Thunderbirds wrapped in late 1965, Gerry Anderson and his ITC financier, Lew Grade, agreed that a feature film adaptation, to be shot at the same time as the prospective Series Two, would be the next logical step in the expansion of the AP Films Thunderbirds franchise. With United Artists contracted to distribute the film and the Rank Organisation to exhibit, a budget of £250,000 was set and Anderson and his wife, Sylvia, commenced work on the script at a Portuguese villa rented to them by Grade. The couple decided to base the plot on the American-Soviet "Space Race", in particular the 1960s contest to land astronauts on the Moon, but adapt this story for the futuristic Thunderbirds universe by changing the destination of the mission to Mars. In the pre-production stages of their next puppet series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, the Andersons would opt to script a second appearance of the Zero-X spacecraft to link the continuities of Thunderbirds and its sequel, which is supposed to be set in the same fictional universe. Captain Scarlet would also prove to be a progression from Thunderbirds Are Go in terms of its depiction of extraterrestrial life on Mars, although the Mysteron antagonists of this series would be more ambitious than the Rock Snakes of the film by actively seeking to attack Earth. The final rescue of the crippled Zero-X emulates that of the airliner Fireflash in the Thunderbirds episode "Operation Crash-Dive".

The role of director fell to David Lane, who had filled this position for several of the Series One episodes and also had editing and special effects experience at AP Films. Aged 24, with this appointment Lane became the youngest film director in Britain at the time. Frustrated with the creative limitations of puppets and concerned that the television series would not adapt well to a film, Alan Pattillo, the Andersons' initial choice, declined the role.

The insertion of Alan's dream sequence set at interstellar nightclub The Swinging Star was spearheaded by Sylvia, who expanded these scenes with a proposed musical interlude to be performed by puppet versions of Cliff Richard and The Shadows, Richard's backup band in the 1960s. Richard and Bruce Welch owned homes in Portugal near to the Andersons, and it was there that the two agreed to "appear" in the film as Supermarionation puppets. Also signed on to contribute to the film's score, Richard and the band recorded a song titled "Shooting Star", with Richard providing the vocals, and an instrumental piece, "Lady Penelope". Anderson concedes that the sequence does not progress the plot, stating in her autobiography that it was "sheer indulgence that would not have been possible on our television budget." Stephen La Rivière, documenting the making of Thunderbirds Are Go in his book Supermarionation: A History of the Future, considers the sequence the strangest ever created by AP Films.